Shopping & Services

Best Place to Buy Zines St. Louis 2006 - Tension Head

When you were a teenager mired in suburbia, it was gratifying to hit your local chain book store for a fix of subversive literature (R.I.P. Ben Is Dead). But it somehow felt wrong to buy our grubby newsprint in such a sterile environment. That's why the extensive zine selection at the rawk & roll boutique known as Tension Head warms our crusty punk-rock heart. Known colloquially as "South Side Education," the array of titles resides cheerfully in the shop's front window on sturdy homemade shelves. Art, music and culture faves (including Bust, Modern Drunkard, Razorcake, Chunklet, Lollipop, Thrasher, Draculina, Imbibe and Maximum RocknRollwhich featured a St. Louis hardcore/punk scene report earlier this year) are stacked alongside a generous selection of locally produced titles. And if you don't find exactly what you want to read, e-mail a request to curators Tim or Chris (tim@tensionhead.net and chris@tensionhead.net, respectively) or post a want list on the Tension Head message boardand they'll see what they can do.